


I'm at the deep end, watch as I dive in

by FarFromTheShallows



Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: 1x1, Cousins, Gen, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarFromTheShallows/pseuds/FarFromTheShallows
Summary: Post 1x1 detention where Michelle actually feels sorry for someone...





	I'm at the deep end, watch as I dive in

**Author's Note:**

> Because I had a long train journey, and instead of doing the assignment I was supposed to write, I procrastinated. I'm English and dyslexic so I apologise for the whole accent thing. I hope you enjoy it...

The journey home had been relatively silent, Michelle had been alive long enough to realise this probably wasn’t going bode well for her. Or him, surely pissing in a bucket is worse than getting what was rightfully hers out of the bag? It was hers, whatever her mum said, that wasn’t stealing. 

She wanted to laugh at his face the whole way home, he looked absolutely terrified, but the look that was painted on her mother’s face suggested that maybe it wasn’t the best. Michelle wanted nothing more than to have a nice laugh at his expense, but she didn’t fancy getting in any more trouble that she already appeared to be in. She assumed that he was terrified for the wrath of her mother, having been subjected too it more times than she would like to admit. Deirdre could be scary, and James hadn’t really witnessed her get mad, but she could tell that it was about to change. 

‘How many times ‘ave I told you Michelle’ she studies her daughters face, twisting the small tube of lipstick in her hands ‘We cannot keep doing that. How many times have we been ‘ere?’

‘Ach Mam-’ If looks could kill she would be 6-foot-under, a smirk finding its way onto her face as she tries not to laugh at her own joke. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but even she knew laughing wouldn’t be a good thing. ‘Anyway, have you got anything to say Dickhead?’ She says, trying to deflect the conversation off her own wrongdoings and make her cousin suffer. ‘You pissed in a bucket, you cr-’

‘nough Michelle, get out of my sight.’ She pouts, she had been wanting to hear her cousin get told off, but she wasn’t going to antagonise her mum anymore, having already put her in a bad mood from having to have her come into school. ‘I don’ want to see you for the rest tonight.’

She moves towards the stairs, sitting on the third step up, just so she could hear their conversation. She waits with baited breath, waiting for him to get in trouble. She was waiting a long time, as her mother and cousin start talking Kathy leaving. She feels an emotion she feels very rarely, as she gets snippets of their conversations, she actually feels bad for him.

After a few minutes, she can hear her mum wrapping up the conversation, after not mentioning the whole pissing in the bucket situation, the cheek of it. She gets in trouble for taking back her lipstick, it was far more important than ball-ache needing a piss, this was an emergency. She scrambles upstairs, throwing her bag on bed, before closing the door and deciding that it probably was a good idea to put her pyjamas on, not quite able to get the snippets of the conversation out of her head, words playing inside her head. Even the alcohol doesn’t make it go away, she still feels bad. Maybe it’s because the alcohol has yet to kick in? It takes fifteen minutes, right?

She had spent the last three weeks of summer with him, after her aunt turned up on their doorstep announcing to everyone she had left her husband, something about him being controlling. She liked Kathy, she was funny and immature, basically she was everything her ma wasn’t. Kathy entertained her, telling her the stuff she had done whilst in England, things that would turn her mam’s hair grey, every time she recounted another story, Michelle wanted to be more like her. Her son, however, was a different story. 

She had met him a few times before, but her living in England meant that they hadn’t seen an awful lot of her family, barring her parents who came over for two weeks each year, until they died. It became the hushed topic, the disgrace that was Kathy. Michelle vaguely remembers Kathy’s wedding when she was seven, the first time she can recall actually meeting James, having both been babysat by their grandparents for a few days whilst their mums celebrated Kathy’s impending nuptials. They had spent time together, getting to know the, much quieter, boy whilst they were stuck together. The visits became even more sporadic, with the occasional letter or phone call from Kathy, that was until she turned up on their doorstep one Sunday morning, after a particularly boring mass.

Then he was thrown in at the deep end, having been dragged across the Irish sea and into Derry, where Kathy knew he wouldn’t fit in. Fast-forward a few weeks, after countless meetings at school between Kathy, James, the guy at the boy’s school and Sister Michael, it was decided that she would be lumbered with the dicko that was her cousin. 

Now she was gone, he was here permanently. There had been no indication for her sudden departure, leaving her only child here, on his own. She wondered if her mam knew, that Kathy was leaving? Maybe she tried to stop her, or maybe she knew that he would be better off here? Curiosity gets the better of her, when she hears the bedroom door next to her slam shut, putting down her hairbrush, and walking towards the door. 

She is suddenly overcome with another emotion she is unfamiliar with, knocking gently on the door. Usually she would like stroll into his room, waking him up at ungodly times because she could, and she thought it was funny, particularly as all her friends had been on holiday and she had nothing better to be doing.

He opens the door, she bites back the comment she was itching to make, he had been crying. Michelle doesn’t need to be invited in, kicking his school uniform to the side, making her way to his bed.  
‘Why are you here?’ as she pulls his duvet around her body, it might be September but she’s a little cold, as he turns around to face her. She notices he’s got a slice of uneaten toast, waddling over in the blanket to steal the slice, he’s clearly not going to eat it. She wants him to moan at her, so she can make a sarcastic comment. That comment doesn’t come. 

‘C ‘mere.’ She motions, tapping the bed she had just fallen back into. ‘Dickhead.’ 

‘She’s not coming back.’ Michelle doesn’t want to tell him that it’s probably a blessing in disguise, his mam is a nightmare, no matter how much she idolises her. Her grandparents had often told Deirdre, when they thought Michelle wasn’t listening, that it would have been better off for James if she had got the abortion. 

She wasn’t the maternal type, not that Deirdre was much better, only choosing to get involved in her daughter’s life when she had too, she hadn’t done this, not yet at least. She had threatened leaving her places, when she was a wain, but she had never actually kept to her word. 

‘It’s okay.’ She mutters, trying not to show too much emotion, that isn’t her. However, in this moment, she feels like she needs too. 

‘It’s not okay.’ 

‘It will be okay.’

‘I have a strange accent, in a place I don’t know. I am the only boy in a fucking all-girls school, with people I don’t know.’ Shrugging the duvet off, she snakes her arms around his torso, pulling him  
closer, ‘I don’t want to be here, I want to be back home.’

She’s at a loss of what to say, she can’t even imagine what he is feeling. Derry is class, but she knows nothing but Derry. If she had to move to where he lived, if she remembers rightly he lived in a place called Purley, she would be confused, and hurt. If she had to go to his school, that’s one thing that was kept the same for him, Kathy had sent him to a Catholic boy’s school, she would be confused. No matter how ballsy she is, she would still be nervous, she would be able to find her way, but it would be a struggle. ‘I’m all alone Michelle, in a place I don’t know, where they have funny accents and I barely know four people.’

‘You have me.’ She’s being truthful, she’s going to rib him senseless, but she’s not going to let him be on his own, she’ll make sure he’s included in the group. ‘And you have me mammy, she cares about you.’ He smiles, taking the fallen duvet and placing it them. ‘She wouldn’t ‘ave you if she didn’t.’ 

‘Thanks.’ He mumbles, trying not to cry, she holds him in the hug for a few moments, an odd feeling over coming her, like she has to protect him, like he’s vulnerable. They sit in silence, only being disturbed by Michelle who decides to eat the other piece of toast on her cousins’ plate.

‘Let’s go watch another movie.’ She tells him, grabbing his hand and pulling him up, smiling at him slightly. ‘I’m sure me da got another movie off Pirate Pauline. Come on dickhead.’


End file.
